How Could I Forget?
by DreamingAngelWolf
Summary: It was a curse he'd had before the war. It was a curse he'd had during the war. Somehow, the Russians avoided it. Now, he has to deal with it again, and it turns out that muscle memory only goes so far. (werewolf!Bucky, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson. Nothing too gory.)


**AN: **This isn't really anything special - months ago I had werewolf!Bucky feels, and there weren't really enough fics, so I just whacked this one out. Not a lot happens, just warning you, and I don't get too graphic or bogged down in details... All I wanted was to write about the transformation. Then Steve and Sam happened at the end idk :/

* * *

How Could I Forget?

Bucky wishes he had something to fiddle with – a gun, a knife, hell even a pencil, just something to keep his hands busy and his attention focused. Well, more focused than it is now, when it darts between the clock, the blank walls, the cord on his sweatpants, the clinical bed sheets, his arm, and (despite his best efforts) Steve. It's a stark contrast to his friend's behaviour – always has been, always will be; Steve just sits in the 'guest' chair, arms folded, frowning at the floor as if he can burn a hole into it. Perhaps he's thinking about the first time they went through this, although it feels like the first time this time for Bucky, regardless of his returning memories. He knows it hurts – he just doesn't know how badly, or how long for. Grinding his teeth, Bucky looks at the clock again, unable to decide whether he wants time to hurry the fuck up or slow its ass down. Either way, the wait is shortening.

The door to his cell hisses open after a beep, and both men glance up to see who is entering. "Got Fury to minimise surveillance," Sam says as he strolls over, "but he won't remove it completely. It'll be him, Hill, a couple of high-ups, and the head of the scientific department watching events, but it's better than the whole of the biology department sticking their noses in for educational purposes. And I spoke to Natasha – she said to pass on her best wishes."

Sighing through his nose, Bucky nods, lacing his fingers together, squeezing hard. "Thanks Sam." He'd rather do this in privacy, but as a prisoner (and a unique specimen) he has little say on the matter, regardless of how personal the occasion is for him.

"Oh – got you this, too." Sam pulls something out of his pocket, tossing it over. Bucky catches it one handed and stares at it for a moment.

"Is this a joke?"

"It's a stress ball," the agent says casually. "Figured you'd need something that wasn't gonna break if you gripped it too hard. Stress balls are good for that."

"We didn't have them in the war," Steve says without warning. He looks to Sam. "Not sure it'll really be that much help, but it's a nice gesture, Sam."

"Yeah, thanks," Bucky mutters.

Sam just shrugs. "No worries. If it doesn't help, maybe you'd like to play fetch with it afterwards or something." Steve tries to cover up a smile, which Bucky ignores in favour of glaring at the agent, who just smirks back.

Silence returns. As the minutes pass by unnoticed, Bucky mentally thanks Sam again for having the insight to bring the stress ball. Though it doesn't do much, it's good to have something to do with his hands besides pick at this or that. When he's done squeezing it, he throws it at Sam to test his reflexes, and a game of catch starts up between them, with Steve soon being included. After they've been throwing it for some time, the questions start coming from Sam.

"So, how long do you have left?"

Bucky spares the digital clock a glance. "About twenty minutes." Steve pauses when he catches the ball.

Sam hums. "How long does it take?" They both looked to Steve.

"Your first ever time took around an hour," he reveals hesitantly. "It got quicker after that, though, when your body became more used to… things. I don't know if you still 'remember' physically, but your last few times only took about two minutes."

An hour… Bucky swallows, throat dry. A twinge of something – panic, perhaps – tightens his chest, but he breathes carefully and clenches his fist and it doesn't escalate. "Right. Guess Fury and the Nosy Brigade are in for the whole thing, aren't they?"

"Yeah," Sam confirmed, nodding apologetically. "Sorry man." He should say it isn't Sam's fault, but he's starting to feel a little hot-tempered. No, make that… hot.

He signals for Steve to resume throwing the ball. "Is the reverse any easier?" he asks tightly.

"Just the same, I think. We never really asked." Steve shifts in his seat. "You didn't like talking about it."

He scoffs. "Figures."

"Are you conscious in there?" Sam asks, lazily lobbing the ball back at Steve. "I mean, are you still… you."

"I don't know," he says shortly, squashing down the urge to jump down off the bed and stalk around the cell.

"You'll still be you," Steve says assuredly. He has that fierce 'trust me I believe in you' look on his face, and Bucky retracts the cynicism on his tongue, nodding his understanding. His t-shirt is starting to stick to him now, but still he insists on tossing the ball around. With the monotonous 'thunk' becoming a new form of time, it's no wonder that ten minutes pass without him realising, and he misses the ball altogether when the muscles in his back shift gently of their own accord.

He freezes. "Shit."

Steve's on his feet in an instant. "Bucky?"

A sense of restlessness wraps around his bones, and he slides off the bed, trying to calm himself down. It's useless, though – he doesn't need memories to know that this is going to be a bad one, and there's very little he can do to prepare. He fleetingly wonders if this was how Doctor Banner had felt before finding control. "You need to get out," he says, voice trembling already.

"What?" Bucky flinches at the look Steve gives him – it's almost identical to one the Winter Soldier saw recently. "Bucky, don't be stupid, we can help."

"I know, but –" Another muscle shift rolls down his back, more pressing than the first. He's too hot, heart picking up speed and breaths coming quicker, and it's just as he feared: his body doesn't remember. "Wanna be alone."

"But Bucky –"

"Steve," he grits out, trembling now. "I don't – I can't –"

"You shouldn't be doing this by yourself!"

"Please."

"Steve." Sam wraps a hand around the super-soldier's bicep, tugging firmly. "Come on." Steve's eyes don't leave Bucky until the door slides shut, and it's at that moment that Bucky finally succumbs to the sensations wracking him.

He bends double, gripping the edge of the cell bed for support as all of his muscles start shifting uncomfortably around his joints. The urge to move is strong, to scratch at the movement under his skin equally so, and he starts to pace, stripping his t-shirt off as he goes (an extremely unpleasant feeling rolls through his shoulders at that). With the material gone, he suddenly realises the metal arm is still attached to his body, and that it isn't going to come off in the next few minutes. Panic sinks in a little further with that revelation, and he runs both hands through his hair as another shift in his back forces him to slow in his pacing and let it pass. Aware that people are still watching him, Bucky tries to even out his breathing, leaning against the bed and closing his eyes, but with tremors still infrequently running up and down his limbs the exercise becomes futile. Just as he's about to look for Sam's stress ball, a sharp, sudden ache darts down his spine, and he knows then that his time is up.

* * *

Bucky paces around the cell erratically, sometimes stopping with a full-body shake that Sam thinks even a regular bystander couldn't miss. He's not quite sure why he's still here, watching Bucky undergo his transformation from behind one-way glass with Steve, but part of him is morbidly curious to see how, exactly, such a change occurs. That, and it would be interesting to see which movies and TV shows had it right – but he'd never admit so to Steve.

At first, he wonders just how much pain Bucky's actually going through. Apart from the occasional grimace of discomfort, he seems to be holding up pretty well. Then a particularly big tremor goes through him, and he cries out, gripping the edge of the bed as his knees buckle. Sam glances at his watch. Nearly ten minutes had passed since Bucky kicked them both out. A second glance at Steve gives Sam the impression that this isn't going to be pretty.

"He's out of practise," Steve says gravely.

Sam does the math. "It'll have been a few years since he turned. Records showed that none of his missions coincided with a full moon."

Steve turns to him, horrified. "Never?"

"Not once."

"Dammit… Why didn't he let us stay?" he growls as Bucky lets out another agonised cry.

"Pride?" Sam guesses. "Insecurity? Self-discovery?"

"Self-discovery?"

He shrugs. "Forgetting how to do something this important is a big deal. Perhaps he wants to relearn how to do it himself, remember what it feels like to do something the Winter Soldier never did." He cringes as Bucky whimpers, curling in on himself against the wall. "Though I gotta say," he adds, "don't know why anyone'd wanna go through this on their own."

"He's stubborn," Steve says absently, a frown deep on his face. Bucky pushes himself away from the wall, stumbling over to the side of the bed again. "Why hasn't he taken the arm off yet?"

It's a good point, and Sam finds himself frowning too. "Can it come off?"

Steve shakes his head. "I don't know…"

"What does that mean for him?" he asks as Bucky drops to the floor.

Putting a hand up helplessly against the glass, Steve lets out a shaky breath. "It means it's going to be a hell of a lot more painful than if he had a flesh and bone arm." Sam tries not to imagine anything. "Did Fury organise a medical team?"

"They're waiting your call, Cap."

He nods. "Think we're gonna need 'em." Sam agrees with him as Bucky starts screaming, and finally tears his gaze away, quietly thankful that Bucky sent them both away.

* * *

It takes sixty-five minutes for Bucky's transformation to complete itself, and the minute Steve recognises the slump in the black wolf's body he's punching in the code for the cell door, the medical team already on the way. "Bucky!" he calls, soft but urgent as he quickly makes his way over to the wolf. Lying on his side, Bucky struggles to try and right himself, but the metal arm is – Steve winces at the sight of it, the way the sharp edges cut deep into Bucky's side, electronics visible at the bottom, already dripping blood onto the pristine floor. Crouching down he reaches out for it, but Bucky snaps at his hand and tries to move away, yelping when all he does is make things worse. "Bucky, hey, shh," Steve murmurs, hands raised, tone as calm as he can manage; "It's me, Steve. I'm your friend, remember?"

Bucky snarls at him weakly, but Steve is patient and slowly inches his hand closer to the wolf. Once his fingertips are within sniffing distance, he waits with baited breath – then Bucky's whining, ears flat against his head as he strains towards the outstretched hand, bumping it with his nose until Steve moves closer, running his hand down Bucky's back, fingers deep in thick fur. "Hang in there, pal," he pleads as the medics finally arrive. He keeps his attention on Bucky, even as the wolf goes tense at the sight of strangers, and helps to keep him down while they administer a sedative.

"We'll do our best, Captain Rogers," one of the medics promises as they lift Bucky away, leaving behind a puddle of blood by the bed.

Steve nods vaguely. "Thank you," he mumbles before he leaves, desperate to follow his friend.

"Fury's ordered every medic with veterinary experience to the med bay on a top priority call," Sam tells him as he catches up. "He'll have the best team working on getting the arm out of him, Steve, but he's already lost a lot of blood –"

"He'll make it."

"Steve –"

"He will. He'll survive this, Sam. He's survived worse."

"Alright."

"He has to." Steve stops abruptly, a hard lump in his throat making it hard to breathe and sending him back to days of asthma attacks and steady mantras – _You can do it Steve, I know you can. You've survived this before, right? This is a piece of cake for you now! C'mon buddy, you got this._ He blinks back to the present, knows without looking that Sam is watching him steadily. "I – I can't lose him again."

His friend steps forward, grips his shoulder firmly, and stares him straight in the eye. "You know, I think you're right," he says. "What did you say he was – stubborn?"

Steve gives a shaky laugh. "Yeah. Human or wolf, that part of him never changes."

Sam smiles. "Come on, let's go find a place to wait it out." When they start walking again, he snorts gently. "Never thought I'd be getting into something like this."

Clapping him lightly on the back, Steve tells him, "It's much appreciated. You'll probably get yourself in his good books after this."

"If he licks my face, I'm outta here." Steve laughs for the first time in hours.

Though they manage to remove the limb and repair some of the damage it caused, the medics express concern about what will happen when Bucky's stint as a wolf is over. As a result, they don't let him out of the medical bay, and Steve is not impressed.

"He'll wake to transform again, sedated or not," he warns them angrily. "You're putting both yourselves and him at risk by keeping him here!" They ignore him, and he almost wants to yell 'I told you so' when Bucky wakes up and starts to struggle against the hands that attempt to hold him down. Sam though, miracle worker that he is, gets Fury himself down to the medical bay to yell at everyone instead.

"Cap," he barks once the medics have scarpered. "Barnes is your responsibility. Get him somewhere safe."

"Yes sir," Steve responds, shifting his grip on a writhing Bucky so that he's holding him by his scruff. With just a bit of encouragement he guides the wolf out of the medical bay and quickly back towards the cell, squashing down any pangs of guilt that surface when Bucky lets out particularly strong yelps or prolonged whimpers. This time, he shuts them both in the cell with Sam outside, and he stays sat on the floor for the full hour it takes the wolf to shift back into human form, stroking shaking muscles and whispering soothing platitudes right up to the moment when a tear-stained, slightly bloody, pain-wracked Bucky passes out in his lap.

* * *

"Bucky?"

At the sound of his name, Bucky reluctantly pulls open his eyes, blinking gingerly until the whiteness becomes more definable. Steve is by his bed, watching him with a relieved smile, but it isn't the bed in his cell. "What –" He breaks off into a cough, throat fiercely sore, and he takes the water Steve offers him gratefully. When his throat feels a little less like a rusty pipe, he drops his head back against the pillows and sighs deeply, feeling the ache down his left side abate a bit with the action. "I have to do that every month?" he asks weakly.

Steve nods. "It'll get better, Buck, I promise."

He snorts softly. "Later rather than sooner, though. And now I have this to deal with." Angling his head down, he indicates the empty hospital gown sleeve where his arm should have been. It hurts something awful, but it's better than having the metal lodged into his side as a wolf. Bucky can't remember the last time he'd experienced so much pain.

"Tony Stark has the arm," Steve informs him. "He's working with some bio-engineers to come up with a detachable replacement, one that wouldn't affect your shift. It may take a while, but it's definitely underway."

"Great," Bucky murmurs half-heartedly, sleep already calling out to him again. "Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't let me do that alone again."

He feels rather than sees Steve hold his forearm securely, a promise in the grip as well as in his words. "Course not, jerk."

"Punk," he says on a reflex, eyes already shut. "Say thanks to Sam."

"He won't mind waiting to hear it from you."

"Sure…" Bucky lets exhaustion drag him under, safe in the knowledge that he'll stay human for another few weeks at least, and that next time, he'll be better prepared.


End file.
